There is a deep pool of veteran talent in Southeast Georgia. Most local employers walk right past it. Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay sits in Camden County, just north of the Georgia and Florida line. It is the only naval base in Georgia. And it is one of the most technical bases in the whole fleet.

Kings Bay is the Atlantic Fleet home for nuclear ballistic missile submarines. The people who run those boats are some of the most trained sailors in the Navy. Nuclear machinist's mates. Electronics technicians. Electricians. Sonar techs. Every year, a wave of them separate and look for civilian work. Many want to stay right here in St. Marys, Kingsland, or just south near Jacksonville.

If you run a midsize company near this base, this is your edge. You can hire disciplined, technical, security-cleared people before the big defense firms scoop them up. This guide shows you how. We will cover the local talent pool and why these veterans are strong hires. We will also cover where to reach them and the tax breaks that come with hiring them.

What Kind of Talent Comes Out of Kings Bay?

Kings Bay is not a normal base. It runs nuclear submarines. That changes who works there.

The base homeports Ohio-class ballistic missile (SSBN) and guided missile (SSGN) submarines. It holds about 9,000 active-duty, civilian, and contract people. Tenant commands include Submarine Group 10, the Trident Refit Facility, Strategic Weapons Facility Atlantic, and the Trident Training Facility. You can see the full list on the official Navy Region Southeast page for the base.

Here is the part that matters for you. The base says it sends more than 550 nuclear submarine officers and technical staff into the local civilian workforce every single year. That is a steady supply, right in your backyard.

The work these sailors do maps to real civilian jobs. Here is the rough mix you will find:

One thing to keep in mind. This is a Navy and submarine base, but not every sailor here is a reactor operator. Read the resume for the work, not the unit name. Some folks ran admin, food service, or medical. Match the person to the job, the same as any other hire.

Why Are Submarine Veterans Strong Hires?

Nuclear submarine sailors go through some of the hardest training in the military. The Navy spends a year or more teaching them before they ever touch a boat. That training does not wash out fast.

Here is what you actually get when you hire one of these veterans.

They follow procedures without being told twice. On a submarine, a missed step can sink the boat. These sailors live by checklists and written procedures. That habit transfers straight to any plant, lab, or shop where safety and quality matter.

They handle stress and long hours. Submarine crews work months underwater on rotating watches. A tough week at your company will not rattle them.

Many already hold or held a security clearance. A clearance is a vetting most civilians never pass. If your work touches government contracts or sensitive sites, this saves you real money and time.

They show up. The Navy drilled in accountability for years. You will not chase these people to get to work on time.

The numbers back this up. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics put the 2025 jobless rate for all veterans at 3.5 percent. That is lower than the rate for people who never served. You can check the full report in the BLS Employment Situation of Veterans release. Veterans get hired and stay hired. They are a low-risk bet for a hiring manager.

How Do You Read a Navy Submarine Resume?

This is where most local employers trip. A sailor's resume can look like a foreign language. Ratings, watch stations, and acronyms fill the page. If you toss it because you do not understand it, you just lost a great hire.

The fix is simple. Translate the Navy job into plain work. Look at what the person built, fixed, led, or owned. Ignore the unit name and the jargon.

Here is a real example of the same person, written two ways.

Same person. One version gets tossed. The other gets an interview. The skill is yours to build, and it pays off fast. We wrote a full guide on how to evaluate a veteran's resume that walks through this screening step by step.

One more tip. If you post jobs online, an applicant tracking system will rank resumes by keyword match. A submarine veteran who writes "EWS" and not "shift supervisor" can sink to the bottom of your list. That is not a rejection. The system just does not surface them. So search your pool using both the military words and the civilian words. You will find people other employers miss. Writing the posting without jargon helps too, which we cover in how to write a job description that attracts veterans.

Where Do You Find These Veterans Near Kings Bay?

You do not wait for the perfect resume to land in your inbox. You go where the talent already is. Near Kings Bay, you have a few strong channels.

The base transition office is your warmest channel. Every separating service member passes through a transition program before they leave. We break down how to work with these offices in our guide on recruiting veterans through base TAP offices.

Because Kings Bay sits so close to the Florida line, you are really fishing in two markets at once. The much larger Jacksonville, Florida Navy talent market sits about 40 minutes south. Treat both as your local pool. You can also look up the coast to nearby Georgia bases. Our playbook for recruiting near Fort Stewart in Savannah covers the Army side of the state.

How Does SkillBridge Help You Hire Early?

SkillBridge is one of the best tools you have, and most midsize employers do not use it. It lets a service member work at your company during their final months of service. The military keeps paying their salary the whole time. You pay nothing for their labor during the internship.

Be clear on one thing. A SkillBridge internship is not a hire. The sailor is still active-duty and still drawing military pay. There is no full-time commitment from either side. If it works out, you make an offer after they separate. Think of it as a long, real-world interview.

To host interns, your company has to be an approved SkillBridge partner. The setup is straightforward. You can read the rules on the official DoD SkillBridge site, then walk through our guide on how to become a SkillBridge host company. Once you are approved, you can source candidates from the provider network. We cover that in how to source veterans through the SkillBridge directory.

For a base like Kings Bay, SkillBridge is gold. You get first look at a nuclear-trained sailor before any other employer in the region even knows they are leaving.

What Tax Breaks Come With Hiring Veterans?

There is a federal tax credit for hiring certain veterans. It is called the Work Opportunity Tax Credit, or WOTC. It can lower your tax bill when you hire a veteran who meets the rules. That includes someone who was out of work for a stretch or who has a service-connected disability.

One important note for 2026. WOTC expired at the end of 2025. It is not available for 2026 hires unless Congress renews it. Congress has renewed it after past lapses, sometimes going back to cover hires made during the gap. But you cannot count on a present-tense credit right now. Veterans you hired in 2025 may still qualify.

Check the current status before you bank on it. Our WOTC guide for hiring veterans breaks down the categories and the paperwork. The federal government also lists hiring help for employers on the Department of Labor VETS employer page.

How Do You Win These Hires as a Midsize Company?

You are not going to outbid a giant defense contractor on salary. That is fine. You do not have to. Midsize employers win on speed, clarity, and location.

Speed. Big firms drag hires out for weeks. You can move in days. A separating sailor with bills coming wants a clear yes, fast. Be the company that gives it.

Location. Many of these veterans want to stay right here in Camden County or just south in Florida. They have a house, a spouse with a job, and kids in school. If you are local, you have something the out-of-state recruiter cannot match.

A clear path. Show the veteran where this job goes in two years. People who served are used to a rank structure and a plan. Vague "we will see" offers lose to clear ones.

The smartest move is to build a pool before you have an opening. When a req drops, you already have names. Our guide on building a veteran talent pipeline before reqs open shows how. And before you start, it helps to know how many veterans are in your local talent pool so you size the effort right.

When you do get someone in the room, interview them the right way. Military folks often undersell themselves. A good interview pulls out the real story. We cover this in how to interview a veteran candidate. For the bigger picture, our veteran recruiting strategy playbook ties it all together.

If your work is near other coastal Navy and Marine talent, the same approach travels. Our guide on recruiting near Camp Lejeune covers a similar mix of sea-service skill sets.

Start Hiring Kings Bay Veterans

The talent near Kings Bay is real, technical, and ready. Nuclear-trained sailors separate here every year. Most of them want to stay local. The employers who reach them first, before the big firms do, win.

That is exactly what Best Military Resume helps you do. We add more than 1,000 new profiles every month, and we have built more than 60,000 resumes. The pool runs deep in maintenance, electronics, logistics, security, and frontline leadership. That is the same skill mix that comes off the boats at Kings Bay.

Stop waiting for the right resume to find you. Go find the person.

Ready to tap into this pool? Reach out to access BMR's veteran talent pool and start connecting with Kings Bay veterans near you.